When Katey Stone grew up in Watertown skating with her brothers and sisters on the Taft School rink or on the pond outside their house near the school, she never dreamed of winning a gold medal. Women's ice hockey was still more than 10 years away from becoming an Olympic sport.

Now 47 and one of the most accomplished coaches in her sport, Stone is getting her chance to take part in this year's Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Because medals are given only to players and not to coaches, she still can't dream of winning gold for herself, but she's enjoying the experience immensely knowing that she can impact the sport in the U.S. by creating and fulfilling dreams for others.

"Honestly, it has always been about the players. That's why you coach," Stone said. "The journey for myself and my staff has been tremendous, but we are trying to keep our eye on the goal. The fun part of it from a coaching standpoint is putting the pieces of the puzzle together. And these young women have made it absolutely enjoyable to do that. They challenged us, and we challenged them."

Four years ago, Stone embraced the challenge of finding a way to lead the U.S. team past archnemesis Canada. The Canadians have won nine World Championships and three Olympic titles since 1990 while the U.S. has won five World Championships and one Olympic title.

Stone has coached USA hockey at various levels since 2006.

"Certainly, it's an unbelievable opportunity to represent your country in some way, shape or form," she said. "It's the ultimate honor. It wasn't on my personal agenda to do it. I just thought it was extremely important to be involved to grow the game."

The Americans won the first Olympic gold medal in women's hockey in 1998 with a 3-1 victory over Canada in the championship game, but in three ensuing Winter Olympics the U.S. has won silver twice and bronze once with the Canadians winning all three gold medals.

"One of the things I have talked to our kids about is that we are building armor," Stone said. "It doesn't happen overnight or even one or two weeks into training. It takes time to build confidence and trust in each other. I think we are defensively strong, offensively deadly, and mentally and physically tough."

After winning back-to-back World Championships in 2008 and 2009 and securing their first No. 1 overall world ranking, the Americans suffered a heart-breaking 2-0 loss to Canada in the 2010 Olympic gold medal game.

"It was devastating in that moment," said 2014 team captain Meghan Duggan. "When you step away from that moment and you look forward, you use it as training motivation and power. It burns in your heart every single day so you remind yourself and your teammates that you don't ever want to feel that way again. So in terms of preparing ourselves, we have done everything we can to come out on top this time. We have covered all the angles, and we are playing great hockey right now."

Duggan said a big part of the reason for that is that Stone has been incredibly diligent in her preparation for the Olympics and has inspired the U.S. players to find something better within each of them. They won the 2013 World Championship.

"She has prepared us every way she can for a gold medal," Duggan said. "I had breakfast with Brianna Decker, and we were just talking about how well-coached we are and how the two of us personally felt that over the last five months we have developed into better players than we have ever been. Hats off to Coach Stone and our coaching staff for the great job they have done in taking the players they had and making us even better."

Stone said that it was never part of her personal agenda to become the Olympic coach. Before the NCAA sanctioned women's hockey, she won two ECAC championships as a player at the University of New Hampshire.

As a coach, she is the all-time winningest coach in women's college hockey with a 402-171-35 record in 19 seasons, including a national championship in 1999 and three straight appearances in the NCAA championship game from 2003-05.

Her accomplishments were enough for USA Hockey to name her the first female head coach of the women's Olympic team.

"Certainly, it is an honor, there is no question about it," Stone said. "But it is not something you can get caught up in. I look at being the first woman as a tremendous responsibility. I hope sincerely that I'm not the last. Being in this position is an incredible privilege and hopefully there will be others to follow."

She said her focus right now is to lead her team to a gold medal. The team begins play with a 3 a.m. game (ET) on Saturday against Finland that will be broadcast live on NBCSN. Stone is eager to get down to business because she believes the team has come together well and is incredibly focused.

Duggan concurred.

"Coach Stone said it well in a recent interview, that we are not trying this hard for second place," Duggan said. "Gold has been on our minds since day one. It's been an incredible year, and I feel like we are ready to go. Obviously, a huge reason why is Coach Stone, her leadership and the way she has pushed us and developed us to prepare us for this moment."

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